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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 26, 2011 21:34:09 GMT -5
I exchanged seed with 26 people and 4 organizations from HG. Some of these folks I exchanged many seeds with, many times. ;D
Every year, people contact me for seed from our local community. I have always been reluctant, as once I put up my blog, all the big farmers started sourcing my same seed and offering the same things. So, as I have spent many years trialing veges, I'm happy to send seed anywhere but my own community.
Year after year at the farmer's market there is white cauliflower, green broccoli, red potatoes, red onions, little green onions, Ace tomatoes, etc.
Well, I started with potatoes and raised 18 different varieties. There was a line at my stall. Some of the buyers were other farmers. The following year I did tomatoes. Now everyone does heirloom tomatoes.
I did purple broccoli, yellow, green and purple cauliflower, now everyone at the farmer's market is bringing the same things.
I have had to range further afield to bring in more and different veges. After the blog about the Heirloom Italian beans came out, the huge CSA down the block from me put in 10 acres of beans.
So, okay, I've been reluctant to share in my own community. Shame on me. I'll try to be better.
My CSA customers have asked for my seed, to start their own gardens. I encourage this. I have promised next year to provide seed to my CSA customers as I can. And I'm sorry for being so grumpy with big farmers with large staffs, who can afford to do their own research, trials and have more equipment than I can every think of having.
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Post by grunt on Dec 26, 2011 22:04:52 GMT -5
Holly: I'm not growing to make a living, so I see things from a significantly different viewpoint. I think, if the other market gardeners are copying what you do, you are in little danger of being without customers.
As I see it, you have a chance to be a major influence to change the entire landscape of market gardening in your area = and the ripples could well spread. We need to maintain all of the diversity we can, and try to get away from the commercial hybrids that are steam rolling over what used to be grown.
Lay yourself out a road map of what you would like to see dominating the scene. and lead them there. If they are following your example to increase their market share, be the Pied Piper with a vengeance, lead them to the Promised Land of OP veggies and rescued varieties. Be the Revival Queen, even though you will never be crowned. As I have seen someplace or other, "Work it girl!, Work it!!"
No politically incorrect meanings intended.
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Post by synergy on Dec 26, 2011 23:06:18 GMT -5
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Post by steev on Dec 27, 2011 0:15:01 GMT -5
Where I farm, the general concept seems to be "no point in planting anything, the deer and pigs will eat it all". All the locals tend to be ranchers with other day jobs. Any who garden at all get their seeds from the building materials store's rack. My Thai neighbor is a notable exception and a valuable light in the darkness.
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Post by 12540dumont on Dec 27, 2011 0:16:07 GMT -5
See Dan,
I knew I was being selfish, but I was down right grumpy when the fellow with 250 CSA customers, went round to the stores where I drop off boxes and started to sell at the same places.
It was so hard to get these stores to do it in the first place, and they waltzed in on my coat tails.
Yeah, I know, my customers are loyal and faithful (until I have to raise prices to cover the rising cost of water).
In the long run, the diversity matters more than my own personal survival, but it's hard to lead the sheep when the wolf is at the door. I did promise to be better didn't I? And so I shall. Leo always says, "work that skirt".
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Dec 27, 2011 2:11:32 GMT -5
It's hard to say. If i had to guess I'd say that not many people garden here. 2-5% sounds like a good number, but i suspect many of those who fit into the garden category are not gardening with vegetables or other edibles.
I do live in the suburbs, but the mountains and country are never far away. I'm fairly sure there are some very active farmers in the state who probably have some really great seeds, but I'm not really sure how i would swap seeds with them. Some of them do have websites now though, so maybe i should think about sending a friendly email or snail letter to the ones i can find or already know about and see what kinds of locally adapted things I can swap/acquire.
I do hope to eventually scope out CSU and find out how much plant breeding is going on over there. It was originally founded as an agricultural university, so it has potential.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Dec 27, 2011 7:16:43 GMT -5
I do hope to eventually scope out CSU and find out how much plant breeding is going on over there. It was originally founded as an agricultural university, so it has potential. Quite a bit of plant breeding goes on there, even though the Soil and Crop Sciences (Agronomy) and Horticulture are both really tiny departments for the size of CSU. I'm not sure if they breed much in the way of vegetable crops in Hort, but my Crop Breeding instructor was an active commercial strawberry breeder. Dr. Sarah Ward was my genetics instructor and she is a quinoa breeder. She managed to get the entire nation of Peru ticked off at her when she briefly patented a cytoplasmic male sterility gene in quinoa. There was definitely a couple breeders actively working with wheat and other small grains doing stuff like breeding for resistance to Russian Wheat Aphid etc. I also remember one professor who was a dry bean breeder. There are and were probably more I'm forgetting, this was a decade ago. I'm sure a lot of those people are still at CSU. I'd say you'd find them to be pretty conventional, pretty focused on commercial and chemical agriculture, but extremely accessible and friendly if approached for information. I have no doubt that most of them would make time for you and would actively respond to email. It is hard for me to imagine them turning you away if you asked for help/advice with a plant breeding project. Another resource you might consider is contacting the state seed lab which is in the Soil and Crop Sciences building. They do all the purity and germination analysis for seed grown in the state. They'd probably be able to get you contact info for any vegetable seed growers/retailers in Colorado and Wyoming. I used to do work-study in there. To my memory it was mostly small grains and forage legumes and grasses, the only vegetable seed I remember doing was a bunch of viability germination tests they would do periodically for the National Seed Storage Lab which is next door to the Soil and Crop Sciences building. seedlab.colostate.edu |
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Post by davida on Dec 27, 2011 12:58:41 GMT -5
the fellow with 250 CSA customers Dumbest mistake that he could make. Appears that you have a ready made client base of 250 additional customers. Your products are definitely more interesting and superior. |
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